Wednesday, 11 July 2012

San Vigilio

After we left Sirmione, we drove back to Riva on a different route than on the way down. It was a smaller road leading right along the lake, and very scenic.

At a place called San Vigilio we stopped; not only because we wanted a break from driving, but also because it looked very beautiful and the sun was shining, and we already knew that back in Riva it was going to be overcast and raining again.

San Vigilio is a peninsula with a tiny harbour at its lowest end and a cypress avenue leading up to its highest point. The harbour, avenue and all the buildings are pretty much as they were 500 years ago - at least from the outside. Inside, there are restaurants and a rather exclusive hotel which has, the website tells me, housed famous guests such as Tsar Alexander III, Winston Churchill, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in former times and Prince Charles and King Juan Carlos from Spain more recently.
The villa itself is still in possession of the same family who had it originally built in 1540.

We didn't know anything about this place; we just thought it looked lovely, and enjoyed the serene and private atmosphere walking down the cypress avenue and the narrow cobbled street to the harbour. The café there looked as if the people there were all part of a private function, otherwise we would have stopped for something to drink and maybe a snack.

Instead, we just walked round a little more, took some pictures, got back into the car and drove the rest of the way to Riva.

Our last evening in Riva was spent partly at the restaurant that had become our favourite (we went there three times in the one week) and partly by dancing on the piazza in front of the old castle; this time, there was no band playing but they had a DJ and the music was enticing enough - but it started to rain (as expected), and so we didn't stay out very long.

On the next day, Sunday, we left Riva for good and arrived in Ludwigsburg at around 9.00 pm. It had been a long drive with a lot of traffic, but I always feel very safe with RJ in the car, since he is an excellent driver who always takes everybody else's movements into account (just like on the dance floor, really, but at rather different speed levels, of course!).

Thank you, Frances! To me, blogging about my holidays has little to do with self-discipline and a lot with my need to remember and express myself in writing, and of course I love getting comments from those who read it :-)(Let's face it: I simply love attention.)

I have little or no ability to recall images so photos are an essential part of my life. Seeing yours and the text that goes with them is all part of an enjoyment of sharing and seeing other places through your eyes.

I felt a real pang of envy (and I'm not an envious person by nature) when you were talking about dancing. It's another of those things I do very badly but would live to do well. It goes with my poor ability to speak languages other than my natural tongue. I am so hoping that I can get my Italian up to tourist level again before September.

Well, I have started learning to dance rather late - most people do that in their teens, but I wasn't interested back then. Now that RJ keeps teaching me, I am amazed at his patience; while I am often impatient with myself and think I should be much better by now, I also know I am already doing alright with some of the dances, and I want to keep improving. It is a wonderful way to spend a Saturday night, and it was great to be able to dance there on the piazza, too (although I must admit it was very different on that cobbled ground and not in my proper dancing shoes...).

Reading your nice post, I just remembered that I went to Riva when I was a child. Now, I'm struggling to remember what it was like. Have you ever had the experience when you know you have been somewhere, but can't remember a thing about it?

Sometimes my Mum or my sister will come up with a story about a person we knew when we were little, or a place we went to, and it amazes me how sometimes these things seem to be completely and entirely gone from my memory, while at other times, I remember in great detail what happened on a particular day, down to the clothes people were wearing. Human memory is a funny thing, and highly unreliable at that, as any police officer will be ready to confirm...!